Archive for June, 2013

Today I am proud to present you the first screenshots of uPod. This was a long way — much longer than I expected. The problem with designing is, that it is mainly trial-and-error and a lot of time consuming pixel shifting. You start with an idea, but it doesn’t look like you expected it and then you try something else. Each time you have to create new image assets and adjust the code.

But it was definitely worth the effort. The uPod user interface brings a fresh new look and feel which mimics the hottest most recent designs like for example Google’s brand new Play Music app. Further on it utilizes some brand new UI patterns like the navigation drawer on the left which has been introduced just two weeks ago on Google IO 2013 and is now used in Google’s latest updates like the new Google Mail app and again Play Music.

The navigation drawer is the starting point of the app and allows you to select what you want to view. The drawer can be opened on a phone by tapping the app icon in the title bar or by swiping it in from the left edge of the screen.

As you can also see on the screenshots, the app has been designed from the ground up to be responsive — meaning the screen layout optimizes itself for the screen size it is running on. For example on the tablet in landscape mode the navigation drawer is always visible and the playback bar is aligned vertically on the right edge.

The podcast view makes heavy use of your podcast’s cover art. This makes using the app a joy as it looks great and helps you to quickly find your way to the episodes you want to access.